Atoms: Informative vs. Entertainment
Edit profile Antonio Igbokidi English Composition 2 Shiloh Peters Contents http://writelikethis.wikia.com/wiki/User:Igbokidi# hide#Atoms: Entertaining vs. Informative (Overview) ##Bill Nye Overview ##Customs #Bill Nye Rhetorical Analysis ##Audience ##Bill Nye’s television series is an exigence that attracts more youth and small children because of the music, pictures, colors, and repetition. He makes it easy for them to comprehend and attracts their attention. In the show about atoms, Bill Nye starts the episode off by using suspenseful music to set the stage and intrigue his audience into his “new discovery”. That accompanied by the show’s theme song excites the intended audience by the sense of hearing. This method is so potent because small children ##Text and Appeal #Compilation of Professor Lectures: Rhetorical Analysis ##Traditional. ##Audience. Text. Appeal. ##Professors vs. Bill Nye #Scientific Scholarly Rhetorical Analysis Comparison ##Breakdown of Scholarly Article ##Comparison #Final Thoughts and Advice to Freshman Atoms: Entertaining vs. Informative (Overview)Edit Science always has, and for the most part will continue to be methodical and straight to the point. You hardly see any derivatives of science because the construct is pretty much set in stone. Literacy sponsors of the science community come off dull and a bit dry in their teaching for this reason, but sometimes there are unique differences in the teaching method of biological professors, scientists, and researchers. Bill Nye OverviewEdit William Bill Nye, an actor, entertainer, but most importantly iconic scientist and researcher has a very much different view on teaching science. He believes that teaching science should be fun and engaging and for that reason, he started a television series of informative, engaging, and interactive scientific topics and activities. His Television show was entitled “Bill Nye the Science Guy” and began airing September 10, 1933. Each of the 100 half-hour episodes aims to teach a specific topic in a natural science to a preteen audience. The show is frequently used in schools as an education medium, and it still airs on some PBS stations for this reason (Wikipedia, Bill Nye). CustomsEdit This is a dramatic difference in teaching that standard scientific rhetors and scholars are not fashionably accustomed to. They are more accustomed to teaching in a more formal setting with much more control, maturity, and sensibility than sporadic interactive and dynamic such as Bill Nye. I acquired a compilation of YouTube videos on professors teaching their students about atoms to compare it with Doctor Nye’s half an hour episode on atoms and the appropriate scholarly scientific writing. I compared and contrasted the rhetorical situations, audiences, methods, in order to fully analyze the scientific approach to teaching. Bill Nye Rhetorical AnalysisEdit The television series “Bill Nye the Science Guy” is an accommodation. It is very much so a popularized version of the scholarly scientific forum of the professors teaching their class in a “professional way.” AudienceEdit Bill Nye’s television series is an exigence that attracts more youth and small children because of the music, pictures, colors, and repetition. He makes it easy for them to comprehend and attracts their attention. It also attracts people who are not in the scientific discourse community because the TV show is made very approachable with its visuals and easy to understand scheme. In the show about atoms, Bill Nye starts the episode off by using suspenseful music to set the stage and intrigue his audience into his “new discovery”. That accompanied by the show’s theme song excites the intended audience by the sense of hearing. This method is so potent because small children are fascinated by noises. Text and AppealEdit Another thing Bill Nye uses to attract his audience are colorful pictures and animation. He uses equipment such as the Proper Proportioned Atoms Model of Science, which he proclaims is a nucleus even though a mature audience can clearly see that it is a constructed project. He also uses a lot of hyperboles to describe the action of his animation. In the episode, he would run all the way from the beach to Alaska to describe the distances electrons travel sporadically. This large exaggeration would entertain a young audience because the action and movement, but it would disinterest a more mature audience because it would distract their attention from the topic at hand. Compilation of Professor Lectures: Rhetorical AnalysisEdit The Bill Nye television series was accurate for the most part, but I the compilation of YouTube videos on professors teaching atoms was more accurate and more in-depth. Traditional. Edit Unlike the child-based television counterpart, the teaching videos took place in a traditional classroom setting with no music playing in the background. There was not anything that stood out to grab your attention, and the professor would often lecture on atoms by showing clips of PowerPoints or writing it down on a chalkboard. Audience. Text. Appeal.Edit The professors would often sound monotone. They would not have enthusiasm and hyperboles like Bill Nye because the audience that they were speaking too was a more mature audience that didn’t need loud music or high interaction to keep their attention. It is just given that the audience will be mature enough to focus on the task at hand. The lectures were also very in depth. The Bill Nye televison show was very much broad in order not to overload the young audience. It explained what atoms are and what they do. The professors in the compilations were very specific about atoms because they know that their audience can handle that intense amount of information. It is clear that enthusiasm is sacrificed for more specific data. Scientific Scholarly Rhetorical Analysis ComparisonEdit Though the compilation of videos of professors is for a mature audience, it is an accommodation as well because it is not a scholarly article or writing piece. The Bill Nye television series and the professors’ lectures are both a visual text. They are not written which is a strong value and convention in the scientific community. Many scientists and researchers in the discourse community use writing methods such as lab reports to inform their audience. Breakdown of Scholarly ArticleEdit I used for an example of a scholarly writing, Fizzy Callsighence lab report. Her Report contained all of the components in a lab. These components are sectioned off by headers. A lab report consist of: Title- the name of the lab report, Purpose- the reasoning behind one writing the lab report, Introduction- background information and brief overview, Hypothesis- the thesis behind one’s experiment, Supplies- everything one is using to conduct experiment, Procedures- step by step layout of how to conduct experiment, Data and Observations- recorded results, and Conclusion- what you learned, what you conclude, and how does that make you feel. It is imperative that in scholarly scientific writing an experiment is conducted, that way credibility is added to your writing. ComparisonEdit Credibility was not added to neither the Bill Nye TV show nor the professors’ lectures because an experiment was not carried out. The Scientific scholarly writing was similar to the professors lectures’ in sense that it was more in depth and that they had the same audience, But it still has actual written text, which is the accepted form in the scientific discourse community. Because the text is different, there is a different audience with the BIll Nye show and professors' lectures versus the written lab report. The visual text makes a larger appeal and therefore a larger audience than the written text because people generally like to view something and watch it, rather than reading. Reading is generally more time consuming and causes more energy and time to comprehend. Bill Nye and the professors' lectures are direct form of informative learning. Also, regardless of the two, the visual texts are slightly more entertaining as oppose to reading. Entertainment is not appropriate in the scientific discourse community. Members of the scientific discourse community relate entertainment to uninformative. The scientific discourse community is very strict and has little to no flexibility when it comes to creativity and writing because science is mostly precise and no room for error. The written lab report is a scholarly article because it is not entertaining. Many people argue that an entertainng scientific text can be scholarly because as long as one obtains a concise understanding of the material, the text has done its job. Final Thoughts and Advice to FreshmanEdit In my opinion, the level of entertainment in your writing should have zero effect on the scholarly level of your scientific writing, but it does. Bill Nye was able to make very accurate and general points about atoms while being interactive and entertaining. Because of his enthusiasm though, his style was deemed unprofessional and unscholarly. The video compilation of professors’ teaching was also deemed unscholarly because it was a visual approach, regardless of how in depth and accurate it was as well. My advice to the upcoming freshman in my science discourse community is to be as professional and as concrete as you possibly can be in your scientific writing. One must go strictly by the books while writing in the scientific discourse community. There is little to no flexibility to be creative and entertaining in the writing. One must write a type of scientific writing such as a lab report and follow its instructions step by step. Even though I concede that entertainment is valuable in writing, I maintain that it is not appropriate in the scientific discourse community because your audience, peers, and others in the discourse will not take the writer seriously. Incoming freshman must realize what their discourse approves and feels is acceptable. The rules have been the same for many generations. Maybe one day, the rules can change.